Types and attributes of english writing errors in the efl context—a study of error analysis

Abstract

This study seeks to explore five 6th grade EFL learners' major writing problems by analyzing the nature and distribution of their writing errors and it also investigates factors that cause errors in their writing in English through email communication. This study examined EFL learners’ writing samples and followed taxonomy: grammatical, lexical, semantic, mechanics, and word order types of errors. Findings showed that participants made more mistakes on interlingual/transfer errors than on intralingual/developmental errors. Students used their L2 habits, rules, and patterns in the second language writing. However, students also had intralingual errors due to the overgeneralizations and partial exposure to the target language. In addition, students also included internet linguistic features in their writing. Some implications are drawn this study. First, for learners, error provided indications for teachers to understand what grammar is difficult for EFL learners. Teachers can include these errors in the teaching. For teachers explicit instructions on different errors are needed, and teachers should provide a context where fluent and accurate language use should be modeled to learners.